Federal Emergency Management Agency

Shaun Heasley/Reuters

News about Federal Emergency Management Agency, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times.

Chronology of Coverage

Feb. 17, 2015

Lawyers representing homeowners whose houses were severely damaged during Hurricane Sandy have uncovered more than 500 doctored engineering reports, which have been used by insurance companies to deny claims; discovery has spurred FEMA to undertake investigation into how reports were doctored, as well as criminal inquiry by New York Atty Gen Eric T Schneiderman. MORE

Jul. 30, 2014

NYU Langone Medical Center, which was badly damaged by Hurricane Sandy and had to be evacuated, will receive $1.13 billion in recovery aid; award is second-largest for a single project in history of Federal Emergency Management Agency. MORE

Jun. 3, 2014

Pres Obama says surge in unaccompanied children crossing South Texas border illegally has created humanitarian crisis; orders Federal Emergency Management Agency to take charge of relief effort as immigration officials open a second shelter for youths. MORE

Apr. 6, 2014

Scores of volunteers, many of them loggers and foresters, have changed the nature of the response to the landslide in Oso, Wash, even as it changed them; loggers and Federal Emergency Management Agency officials developed growing respect for each other over different areas of expertise. MORE

Mar. 24, 2014

Federal Emergency Management Agency and New York City Housing Authority, under $100 million deal, agree to replace unreliable temporary boilers used by all 110 New York City public housing buildings for heat and hot water after Hurricane Sandy flooded their original ones in 2012. MORE

Dec. 8, 2013

Federal Emergency Management Agency has formally recommended that medical personnel be sent into dangerous situations before they have been secured by law enforcement; officials and medical experts who have studied the Boston Marathon bombing and mass shootings like the one in Newtown, Conn, have concluded that this kind of aggressive medical response could be critical in saving lives. MORE

Dec. 7, 2013

More than 30,000 residents of New York and New Jersey remain displaced from their homes after Hurricane Sandy, mired in bureaucratic and financial limbo; analysis reveals that less than half of people who sought aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency have received it, and in many cases flood insurance covered only fraction of losses. MORE

Oct. 26, 2013

Number of properties in New York City that will be required to have federal flood insurance will nearly double in 2015, to about 32,000, under updated maps from Federal Emergency Management Agency; accompanying higher premiums may mean that many city residents will have to relocate. MORE

Sep. 25, 2013

Hundreds of New Yorkers displaced by Hurricane Sandy are facing eviction from hotels; many have or are applying for federal rental subsidies, but finding affordable apartments has proved daunting; lawyers for the city, saying Federal Emergency Management Agency is ending reimbursements for hotel program, are trying to evict the approximately 350 remaining evacuees by Oct 1 and steer them into homeless shelters. MORE

Sep. 14, 2013

Jul. 29, 2013

Group of New York and New Jersey lawmakers plans to introduce bill in Congress to change Federal Emergency Management Agency policy that they say discriminates against owners of cooperatives and condominium apartments; thousands of homeowners in damaged co-ops and condos were largely barred from federal disaster assistance for single-family homes after Hurricane Sandy. MORE

Jun. 23, 2013

Federal Emergency Management Agency decision to decline to give Texas officials full amount of disaster aid requested after deadly fertilizer plant explosion in town of West has some asking why federal government has to pay when Texas has plentiful state and local finances; disaster and emergency response experts say federal officials made the wisest, if not the most popular, decision. MORE

Jun. 13, 2013

May. 29, 2013

Jane L Levere Advertising column; Federal Emergency Management Agency has released new public service advertising, created in conjunction with Advertising Council, to educate Americans about its wireless emergency alert system; campaign will use radio, television and digital ads to get word out about two-year-old system MORE

May. 2, 2013

Residents in New York City co-ops damaged by Hurricane Sandy discover that they are ineligible for federal aid; under longstanding policy of Federal Emergency Management Agency, co-ops are considered businesses, even though they are essentially nonprofit entities set up by property owners, and therefore are largely barred from federal disaster assistance. MORE

Jan. 31, 2013

Homeowners in Canarsie, Brooklyn, welcome new maps introduced by Federal Emergency Management Agency showing marked increase in flood-prone areas near New York City's coast; say new flood maps could have given them a warning before Hurricane Sandy hit. MORE

Jan. 29, 2013

Federal Emergency Management Agency releases new federal flood maps revealing grim news that many New Yorkers were girding for after Hurricane Sandy--more areas farther inland are expected to flood in future storms. MORE

Dec. 30, 2012

Hurricane-readiness project in Texas, partly financed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, involves building sturdy multipurpose buildings; they can be used as recreation or community centers when not needed as shelters. MORE

Dec. 18, 2012

New York and New Jersey homeowners hit hard by Hurricane Sandy are receiving an unusually generous array of federal financial assistance, including $131 million in expedited rental assistance; Federal Emergency Management Agency officials report they are taking innovative steps to accelerate repairs on damaged homes in areas with a shortage of vacant housing; highlights of assistance charted. MORE

Nov. 12, 2012

New York Gov Andrew M Cuomo plans to ask the federal government for at least $30 billion in disaster aid to help New York City and other affected areas of the state recover from Hurricane Sandy; governor's advisers provide a staggering inventory of need as the city and state continue to rebuild in the storm's deadly wake; tally exceeds the roughly $12 billion in FEMA disaster aid currently available without action from Congress. MORE

Nov. 12, 2012

Federal officials are asking New York City landlords to work with them to make vacant apartments available to thousands of families displaced by Hurricane Sandy; goal is to create a system that would allow potential tenants to pay rent directly with Federal Emergency Management Agency vouchers, or obtain such apartments through relief agencies like the American Red Cross. MORE

Nov. 10, 2012

Joe Nocera Op-Ed column describes his visit to Rockaways to help residents struggling with aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, disagrees with Mayor Michael R Bloomberg's assertion that New York City does not need FEMA's help; says devastation he witnessed there shows that the city needs all the help it can get. MORE

Nov. 4, 2012

Federal Emergency Management Agency head W Craig Fugate has done much to shore up agency's image; he is the straightforward, apolitical former director of Florida emergency operations; agency is still viewed with caution after its poor handling of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and in some places in New York City with scorn after Hurricane Sandy. MORE

Nov. 3, 2012

New Yorkers from across the city are trying in ways small and large to ease the devastation left by Hurricane Sandy; some volunteers sat that local, small-scale relief efforts are outpacing those of the Red Cross or the Federal Emergency Management Agency. MORE

Nov. 3, 2012

First trickle of federal funds has started to go out after Hurricane Sandy, with $29 million allocated to rebuild highways and $30 million to hire temporary workers to help with the cleanup on the East Coast; Federal Emergency Management Office has $7.5 billion to spend this fiscal year, and an additional $5 billion could be made available for storm recovery with no spending offsets required in other government programs. MORE

Oct. 30, 2012

Federal Emergency Management Agency officials are struggling with question of how to deploy resources in face of powerful and far-reaching Hurricane Sandy, hoping to redeem agency for its prior failures. MORE

Oct. 30, 2012

Editorial underscores importance of role federal government plays during natural disasters, in light of Hurricane Sandy; observes that Mitt Romney has stated in past that emergency management should be left to the states, which is in line with decades of Republican resistance to federal emergency planning. MORE

Sep. 28, 2012

Federal Judge Kurt D Engelhardt gives his final approval to a $42.6 million class-action settlement between companies that made and installed government-issued trailers after hurricanes in 2005 and Gulf Coast storm victims who claim they were exposed to hazardous fumes in the shelters. MORE

Aug. 28, 2012

Editorial contends Tropical Storm Isaac is a powerful reminder both of Republican incompetence in handling Hurricane Katrina seven years ago, and the party’s no-less-disastrous plans to further cut emergency-related spending. MORE

May. 4, 2012

Report conducted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency finds that state and local officials are confident that public health and medical services are prepared to respond to man-made disasters, but are concerned about preparedness for cyberattacks. MORE

Mar. 13, 2012

Gov Pat Quinn of Illinois says he will appeal the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s denial of assistance to homeowners affected by the southern Illinois tornado. MORE

Nov. 10, 2011

First nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System does not go off as planned; all television channels and radio stations in the United States were supposed to be interrupted by piercing emergency tones, but some viewers say they instead heard a Lady Gaga song. MORE

In an attempt to improve its disaster assistance services, the City of New York unveiled a prototype for temporary living structures. The units will be studied by the city’s Office of Emergency Management for the next year.